Burma/Myanmar
Myanmar is one of my favorite countries. When I first visited in 1988, the country was still known as Burma. General Ne Win ruled the place with his iron fist. Trouble that started during my week-long visit led a cabal of generals to take over. When I returned in 2002, it governed the renamed Myanmar as the State Peace and Development Council. By my last visit in 2015, the fragile democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi was taking hold.
The changes over those twenty-seven years have been dramatic, but the country is in many ways timeless. Despite its troubles, I encourage everyone to go. Engagement, not isolation, brings progress – for more on that topic, see my Top Five Places to Go Now.
Galleries
Bagan Gallery, Myanmar
Highlights from Myanmar's ancient empire of Pagan along the Irrawaddy River
Bagan Gallery
Schwedagon Pagoda Gallery
Scenes from the pagoda towering over Myanmar's capital Yangon
Schwedagon Pagoda Gallery
Mrauk U Gallery, Myanmar
Views of the ancient capital of Rakhine on Myanmar's west coast
Mrauk U GalleryStories
One Day's Adventure
Upriver with a boat of pig farmers to the ancient empire of Mrauk U
One Day's Adventure
Bill's Books
A Novel of New Amsterdam
The Mevrouw Who Saved Manhattan
"[A] romp through the history of New Netherland that would surely have Petrus Stuyvesant complaining about the riot transpiring between its pages."
- de Halve Maen, Journal of the Holland Society of New York